We live in an ocean of words, but like a fish in water we are not often aware of it. There are close to two and a half billion of us on the planet today (as of the writing of this text), and practically every one of us, except very young children, is constantly talking, listening to talk, learning to talk. Even a hermit talks to himself. The 50 per cent or so of the world's population who are more or less literate will also be reading words and, less frequently, writing them. Until relatively recent times, literate people were so rare as to be practically abnormal, and the ocean of words was almost entirely vocal.